


What Real People Have

by compos_dementis



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 23:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What do people have, then, in their real lives?"</p><p>Every slasher's favorite scene from "A Study in Pink" written in Sherlock's POV. Written for the Sherlock kink meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Real People Have

"People don't have arch-enemies."

 

Sherlock is so distracted by the people strolling casually out of the window of Angelo's that he nearly misses John's words. Two bankers, a stay-at-home mother, a couple of teenage boys holding hands with their trousers pulled down to show a stripe of neon underwear on each boy. Each person that Sherlock sees is an open book. He can read their lives in their shirt sleeves and the soles of their shoes, and it's dull and it's simple and he's watching that house for a sign of someone, anyone, who will show interest.

 

They are sitting in a restaurant and they are waiting for a killer.

 

Sherlock turns his attention back to John, who is seated across from him looking tired, if mildly amused. "Sorry?"

 

"In real life. There are no arch-enemies in real life. It doesn't happen."

 

"Doesn't it? Sounds a bit dull."

 

John asks a question - likely something about food, but Sherlock isn't paying attention to that anymore. He never eats while on a case because digesting slows him down and he needs to be in his top mental condition in order to fulfill his goals. Now that he's focused on the matter at hand, he has a burning need to ask. Sherlock doesn't have friends, doesn't have companions or partners - he's lived alone for years now, occasionally pumping enough cocaine into his system to make him dizzily paranoid, or occasionally ruining perfectly good pairs of shoes with his experiments or boredom. He is a repellant to social norms and societal standards, and people want nothing to do with him.

 

Sally Donovan with her bitter words and the clear grudge she holds against him. Anderson with his snide remarks and the general animosity between them. Even Lestrade, though patient, keeps at arms length.

 

"What do real people have then? In their real lives?" Sherlock asks, in all honest curiosity, because he has no one. Who does John have? Mike Stamford, perhaps, though looking at John now, he doubts that the two speak much. 

 

John replies, "Friends. People they know, people they like, people they don't like. Girlfriends, boyfriends."

 

"Yes, as I was saying: dull."

 

There's a short pause, barely enough time for him to brace himself with the question he should have known was coming. "So you don't have a girlfriend, then."

 

"Girlfriend?" Sherlock asks. The word itself seems foreign on his tongue, and he thinks of Molly with her wide eyes and small mouth. "No. Not really my area."

 

"Oh." Sherlock is looking back out the window at a passing couple and toward 22 Northumberland Street, trying to keep his eyes fixed on the house. Across from him, John looks down to his menu and then back up at him, though Sherlock tries not to make eye contact. "Oh, right." John's voice, confident and yet hesitant. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

 

There's the grinding halt of gears in Sherlock's mind and he turns sharply to look at John. He hopes that his surprise doesn't show on his features, and he hopes that his own anticipation isn't written on his face as obviously as he thinks it is. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he sees Victor Trevor in his rumpled shirt and holding a fistful of sunflowers in his hands.

 

John pushes on, "...Which is fine, by the way--"

 

"I know it's fine," Sherlock cuts him off, tense, defensive. He knows it's fine. Mycroft is gay; not openly so, but he's as obvious as daylight with the way he delicately holds things, with that condescending smirk, with the fact that Sherlock had walked directly into one of the most intimate moments of Mycroft's life completely on accident.

 

Mummy had been furious. Nearly disowned his brother over the matter, but thought that would look bad to the family name. Not that it matters now, with Mycroft in a position their mother would have been horribly proud of, with Sherlock technically unemployed and living - thus far - on his own still, with no way to pay the rent.

 

Of course, even with Mummy dead, Sherlock is still not the favorite child.

 

There is a silence that stretches on long enough to make John clearly uncomfortable. Sherlock, as usual, feels nothing; he cannot react emotionally to the situation because there's nothing there for him to really feel. 

 

"So you've got a boyfriend," John says with an air of finality.

 

But Sherlock just cuts in again, "No."

 

"Right, okay," John laughs. Sherlock doesn't see what's so funny about this; it's like Victor all over again, and he's barely met the other man. "You're unattached. Just like me. Right." Sherlock continues looking at him; no, staring at him, unable to read what is going through John's head. It's only the awkward, "Good," that passes John's lips that makes Sherlock receive warning bells in his head.

 

He and Victor walking home with their bellies full of seafood and fine wine. Victor's hand brushing his own. Victor's constant questions about his love life and whether or not he would ever be interested in seeing anyone, and he had liked Victor, of course he'd liked him, but not like...

 

It's happening again, he thinks, and his heart is beating in his throat not out of nervousness but... almost out of fear. He's barely met John and he's already losing him. Sherlock swallows, looks out of the window again, but can't help himself and looks back. There's another of those swelling, pregnant silences that leaves both of them awkwardly looking away from each other.

 

"John, um..." Sherlock's voice is steady even when he feels it shouldn't be. John looks up at him from his menu once more and Sherlock feels... empty. "I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work." The words come in a rush, in a single breath. "I'm more than flattered by your interest," he lies, "but I'm really not looking for any--"

 

John is clearing his throat, shaking his head, muttering, "No, no," over and over, and now Sherlock's eyebrows are knitting because did he do something wrong? Is this it, is it over, is it... "I'm not asking-- No. No. I'm just saying..."

 

Sherlock just looks at him, terrified and frozen.

 

"It's all fine," John finishes soothingly, a look of complete patience on his face. 

 

With a tiny nod and an exhale of breath that he hadn't realized he was holding, Sherlock feels the knot in his stomach loosen.


End file.
